Conventional mapping technologies for flight operations can include interactive touchscreen devices. Touchscreen devices can allow pilots to perform various functions before and during a flight. For example, a map application may be presented in a display of the touchscreen device. The map application can display, among other data, the current flight path, the current location of the aircraft, flight details of the aircraft, and a direction in which the aircraft is heading. Some map applications allow the pilot to change information in the map while in use. For example, the map application may allow the pilot to zoom into or zoom out of a map.
In another example, the map application may allow the pilot to interact with a flight route displayed in the map application. When receiving an input in conventional map applications to change the flight route, a typical manner in which the flight route is modified is through “rubberbanding.” In a conventional map application, when a user touches a departure point, a destination point, or an intermediate point, the user may be able to move the point to another location.
FIGS. 1A and 1B show an exemplary implementation of rubberbanding in conventional map applications. In FIG. 1A, a touchscreen device 100 is executing a map application 102 in a display 101. The map application 102 causes a map 104 to be rendered in the map application 102. The map 104 includes a departure point 106 and a destination point 108. The flight route between the departure point 106 and the destination point 108 is indicated by flight route line 110.
A user 112 can “drag,” or rubberband, a point on the flight route to create an intermediate point 114 by touching a touch point 116 and dragging the touch point 116 to touch point 118. A preliminary flight route line 120 can be rendered to provide a visual indication to the user 112 of the movement of the flight route line 110. FIG. 1B shows the map 104 when the user 112 removes the touch input. The flight route line 110 has been removed, while the preliminary flight route line 120 is rendered in a solid line to indicate that the flight route line 120 represents the current flight route.
When using conventional rubberbanding technologies, a user may need to have at least two points designated on a map in order to create the flight route line that allows a user to interact with the flight route line. Also, in conventional technologies, once the user removes the touch input, such as removing their finger from the touch display device, the original route may be removed and replaced by the rubberbanded route, as described in FIG. 1B. It may be difficult, or impossible, for a user to switch back to the rubberbanded route or remove any intermediate points input by the rubberbanding technology.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.